The emergence of the Twelver Shiite community of Lebanon. (c2008)

Abstract

This study will try to understand the sudden emergence of the Twelver Shiite community of Lebanon, a previously underrepresented and alienated community that is rarely mentioned in historical accounts. The Shia have failed to play any role either in the successive political entities that were applied to the country, or in the Sunni-Maronite National Pact of 1943 that distributed power in the new Greater Lebanon independent entity. The Shia also failed to play any significant role post-independence, and until the beginning of the 1975 war. But suddenly, they emerged center-stage with Musa al-Sadr, and later on, with Hezbollah. In fact, the Shiite community underwent a complete social overhaul during the last century due mainly, but not exclusively as was the case with the Maronites, to the role of the religious establishment and opportune events that paved the way for their revival. In July 2006, the Shiite Hezbollah emerged as a regional superpower capable of inflicting heavy damage on Israeli infrastructure and military establishment. Throughout the thirty-three-day July war, a small group of Lebanese Shia armed and trained by Iran and Syria, managed to harass and provoke the Israeli war machine into "open war" and to achieve what late Egyptian President Jamal Abdel Nasser, the Fedayyin and all Arab monarchs and regimes combined had failed to achieve for over sixty years of Arab-Israeli conflict; A balance of terror. This study will further emphasize the socio-religious evolution within the community, shedding light on the main events and milestones that constitute the building blocs of the Shiite community of Lebanon. One should bear in mind that this whole integration was made possible as a result of extremely opportune events and favorable occurrences over the past thirty years. Sadly enough, the Maronites of Lebanon did not enjoy the same fortune. They almost went the opposite direction losing in the process, due to built-in predicaments and unfavorable external and regional factors, their prominent role in Lebanon and the East.